Diversity without understanding the power of feelings will never work
“Diversity without understanding the power of feelings will never work,” reveals Jonathan Hook, Director of Learning at CHX Performance, on the Business of Sustainability , the new podcast produced by FuturePlus in partnership with City PM.
In episode 1 of the Business of Sustainability, Jonathan joined co-hosts Alex Smith and Mike Penrose alongside CHX Performance founder, Damien Stork to discuss the biology of business and explore people’s sustainability and what that means for individuals, businesses and organisations.
“Nearly all work in the modern economy is knowledge based,” explains Jonathan.
“To be successful, individuals and teams have to negotiate a whole complexity of communication across a wide range of barriers: geographical barriers, demographic barriers, educational barriers, all of these things.
“The quality of that communication determines the success of the outcome, the sharing of that knowledge across these complex barriers and these complex interdependencies.
“So let’s think about diversity. On paper, intellectually, diversity makes complete sense. You’d think from a biological perspective, when a species loses diversity, it has a population crash, it gets it to a tipping point where one disease wipes out the whole species because there is no diversity.
“Well, an organisation needs diversity of thought to deal with all the challenges that it faces. So on paper, it makes sense, but if you have people who do not feel included or equitably treated, the potential synergistic benefits of diversity just simply cannot manifest because of how people feel.
“Feelings are not unprofessional things that need to be left at home. That was the kind of general view through the 70s and 80s. They’re not pink and fluffy, they’re hard, biological processes that change our biology and which, in turn, changes how we feel about things, those things being work.
“Diversity without understanding the power of feelings will never work.”
Jonathan’s view were further echoed by Damien Stork, founder of CHX Performance:
“We’ve seen this extraordinary challenge developing, post COVID, where organisations are trying to get their people back into the office.
“We know that the office environment, in its wonderful perfect form, is an incredibly collaborative positive experience and there’s so much benefit for bringing people into the offices and sharing that time together.
“It’s also critically important for mental health, particularly in sectors like law where we (CHX Performance) do quite a lot of work, where isolation is a huge risk, bringing people back in, very, very important.
“It’s really interesting how loathe people are to return to the office. We’ve got to look at ourselves hard and say, ‘is that because COVID has shown us another way that we can live this life that’s hybrid or work from home which suits us better?’
“Quite possibly, that’s true, but we also need to look at ourselves in the mirror and say, ‘is the environment we’re asking people to return to not a good one?’
“I think we’ll find that the answer lies in both, somewhere.”
The Business of Sustainability is a new podcast series from FuturePlus in partnership with City PM, which discusses the latest trends, challenges, and advancements in the sustainability and ESG landscape.
Co-hosted by Alex Smith and Mike Penrose, the founders of FuturePlus, the series is for anyone looking for valuable insights on sustainability in business. We’ll be hearing from a range of experts in the ESG and sustainability sectors including investors, innovators, and regulators.
Each episode looks to provide you with expert analysis and opinions on the future of sustainability in business, including some of the challenges facing all of us.